Posted on 01/07/2005 11:08:27 AM PST by Swordmaker
About a month ago, I compared the cost for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) desktop, server and laptop products to their nearest Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) equivalents (see Macs Are More Expensive, Right?) and discovered that Macs generally cost less than comparable PC products.
That was a bit of surprise, but the truly astonishing thing that came out of the comparison was that Dell's product line extends marginally below Apple's at the low end, but has nothing to stack up against Apple's 17-inch Powerbook, X-Serve/X-RAID combination, or Cinema displays at the high end.
Bottom line: when you upgrade the PCs enough to allow an approximately apples to apples comparison, Apple turns out to offer both lower prices and a broader range than Dell.
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So are PCs faster than Macs? The real answer is that relative performance depends entirely on the software and is both hard to define and hard to measure.
Macintosh Hardware Fastest
The short answer, however, can be based entirely on raw hardware capabilities, and that answer is pretty simple: the Mac wins hands down.
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Thus, the basic short answer is pretty clear: level the software playing field, and the X-Serve blows everything else away, while even last year's desktop G5s, at 3.7 Gigaflops per CPU, handily beat this year's Dell servers at only 3.1.
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On the other hand I think the intuitive bottom line on the Macintosh versus PC productivity debate is actually pretty simple: I've never met a PC user whose focus on the job he or she was supposed to be doing wasn't significantly diluted by the need to accommodate the PC and its software, but I've never met a business Mac user who considered the machine anything other than a tool, like a telephone or typewriter, for getting the job done.
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These are mere excerpts. Read the entire article
The author is a LINUX enthusiast and does not have a horse in this race...
thanks, I almost went with "iThink, therefore iMac" but thought it was just a twinge too far
IBM POWER products kick ass!
Doesn't always load on the first try.
Sorry to have to correct your typos in public; but I think you meant lick, not kick...
bttt
I do software support for the USMC in Fallujah. "Capable" is exactly how I'd characterize windows in the client realm. It's the lowest common denominator.
I work on windows boxes for 12-18 hours a day and what I use to game, code and learn when I finish work is a Powerbook.
It's funny that my company's expense reports in Excel work correctly in Mac Office 2004 but not Win-ders Office 2003, XP or 2000.
What a clever repartee.
It's a niche machine. What's its market share?
The facts are it is slower, the software offerings are a fraction of those available for the PC, and the sowftware tends to be greatly more expensive.
Which pretty much keeps it a cult/niche product, used mainly for graphic arts composition and little else.
As I like to say: "PCs ae designed to impreess users; Macs are designed to impress interior decorators." You just know that flaming gay guy Christopher Lowell is a macophile...
--Boris
nttttttttttt
You are right ... I build my own but not so high level as yours.
[finally back online] does Apple make routers? [rhetorical]
PC productivity debate is actually pretty simple: I've never met a PC user whose focus on the job he or she was supposed to be doing wasn't significantly diluted by the need to accommodate the PC and its software, but I've never met a business Mac user who considered the machine anything other than a tool, like a telephone or typewriter, for getting the job done.
Looks like you fall into the first category. You're kinda like the guy that buys a cheap old clunker and spends half his time working on it. I like to think of Mac users as drivers of really well built sports cars that spend most of their time getting where they're going.
Fallujah? no crap!!!
I have spent the past year at Camp Victory....
Actually that is exactly backwards. Mac users are Chevy drivers; they go down to the dealer, buy a car, and just want to turn the key to go to the store. They could care less what kind of engine is under the hood or even how it works.
PC users are owners of cranky italian sports cars, who can be found on any particular Saturday covered in grease to their eyebrows, engine parts all over the garage floor, happy as pigs in a sty.
Ask yourself: who is putting neon lights in their machines? Who is water-cooling the processors, memory, and video card? Who is building custom cases--one of lucite with a JHC GOLDFISH TANK for the water supply--and a gigantic noisy fan-driven radiator on top to reject the heat? Mac users? It is to laugh.
--Boris
Now that's funny. How many guys buy a 300K sports car and then start tearing it apart? I'd bet none.
Besides that, you run Gatesware. Cased closed.
I know a few who bought lower-scale italian numbers and do just that. Alfa-Romeo, that sort of thing. Or those British racing green jobs with the big wheels (MGs). Usually used, I admit.
--Boris
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